


imprudent infidelity

by neighborhoodscum



Category: South Park
Genre: Alcohol, Blow Jobs in a Car, Break Up, Cheating, Craig is vulnerable, Crenny, F/F, F/M, Hypersexuality, Implied/Referenced Cheating, K2 - Freeform, Kenny wants to get better, M/M, One Night Stands, One Shot, Recreational Drug Use, Sex, Unhealthy Relationships, Weed, impulsion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-07-07 21:16:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15916404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neighborhoodscum/pseuds/neighborhoodscum
Summary: Craig wants to know why Kenny can't seem to stay loyal.The only problem is, Kenny can't tell why either.Maybe it was just the weed.





	imprudent infidelity

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!
> 
> This has been in my Google Docs for quite a while now and I haven't published it.
> 
> The reason I was so hesitant to put this specific work out there was because I was afraid any of you would believe I was romanticizing toxic or unhealthy relationships/habits. However, that's not the case at all; I just felt that many people see cheating as a "do it once and we're done" kind of deal, not something that can be gotten away with many times through unintentional manipulation.
> 
> I don't think this is something that Kenny would ever do. Even in this story, he genuinely does not like cheating. I tried to get it as realistic as possible, keeping it as close to what could really happen as I could manage. Hopefully it's not incorrect in several ways.
> 
> Thanks for reading, though, I appreciate it!

His eyes burned themselves into the back of Kenny’s head as the blond man sat stiffly on the edge of the bed.

 

Craig has propped himself up against the headboard of their shitty and small full-sized bed, that never felt roomy as two kids at a sleepover, and certainly not now when it was shared by two grown adults every night.

  
Or, what was every night.

 

Craig licked his top row of teeth, stopping briefly to remind himself of the chip in his top right tooth. He couldn’t remember how he got it. He just knew that one morning he’d woken up after a long and tiring night with puffy eyes, a chipped tooth, and a very silent Kenny McCormick.

 

Kenny stared down at the wooden floorboards almost expectantly, like they were somehow supposed to provide him with answers to all of his problems. There was nothing interesting about the floor. He just couldn’t find the will to lift his head enough to face the wall due to the shame weighing him down by the neck--which, maybe, was why he felt too suffocated to say anything to the man glaring daggers into his back, the sour expression likely still plastered on his face.

 

“So,” Craig finally spoke in that same dull and dry tone, “are we going to talk about it?”

 

Kenny let out a shallow breath before shrugging, lifting his hands up as though his shoulders wouldn’t express the frustration he needed Craig to know he had.

 

Craig simply nodded, looking down at his kneecaps. They were crossed in front of him on the bed. His flannel pajama pants were thin and allowed the bones to protrude through the fabric, which wasn’t very pleasing to Craig but nobody else would likely notice. “I think it’s best we do.”

 

Kenny clenched his jaw tightly, tension building up as his teeth were pressed firmly together. It was as mild as a self-injury could go, and it was as much as Kenny was willing to do when he re-adjusted himself to turn around and face his boyfriend on the bed.

 

When he met eyes with him, he noticed Craig’s face was no longer sour. Although Craig had usually been very cantankerous and tetchy when the two came to a disagreement, his eyes weren't filled with disappointment but were instead blotchy and pink and looked like they were so worn down. 

 

“What do you want to know about it?” Kenny swallowed, picking at the knitted blanket beneath the two. He was silently praying to himself that Craig would refrain from exploding at what he would say, even though he knew he had every right to go off. 

 

“Why’d you do it?” His voice cracked, his arms crossing over his chest and raising his eyebrows. He felt himself shaking violently under his skin yet refused to let it show through. He had to be strong, no matter how broken he seemed to appear. 

 

“I don't have any reason for it,” Kenny confessed, “there was no motive. No purpose. You're not gonna get a justification.”

 

“And you're not even going to try?” Craig's voice broke on that last word, something out of the ordinary to Kenny. It was blatantly obvious to every citizen in this god forsaken town that the whole ‘numb and stoic asshole’ persona was, and always had been, a big fat fucking facade--nevertheless, Craig stuck to it both in and out of his personal life, even if it was in no way true.

 

Kenny closed his eyes, unable to face the red mess in front of him. He couldn’t keep doing this to himself, nor could he do this to Craig. It wasn’t fair for either of them. 

 

“Maybe I was just high,” Kenny managed to force out, staring blankly at the boy. “Maybe it was just the weed we were smoking. It was fruity pebbles, you know, the multicolour ones that you always thought looked like the underside of a high school desk?” He shifted, images of Bebe giggling in front of his face as she swayed to the rhythm of a song he couldn’t remember. “It was spontaneous without thought, which was so fucking ignorant and irresponsible. And I can’t even begin to express how--”

 

“You just fucking left, though,” Craig snapped a little more, voice still wavering and far less than angry. “I don’t know why. You just got off the couch and left the building like you didn’t have anything else to care about.” 

 

Kenny leaned his head back to hold the tears back, and also to recall the drunken leave he’d made. He had received some strange text from Bebe that she’d gotten some dope from her ex boyfriend’s sister (who she was in an open relationship with) and that she needed someone new to smoke with. Despite the fact they had smoked together dozens of times up until just over two years ago, she wanted him around for old times’ sake.

 

But mostly to hold back the tears.

 

“I was drunk,” Kenny confessed quietly, shutting his eyes to keep from seeing the hurt expression on his boyfriend’s face. “Every time something bad happens, I’m drunk. I don’t like alcohol after growing up with Kevin and Dad, but I had half a bottle of wine and suddenly every little thing seemed like such a good idea.”

 

Craig’s eyebrows furrowed, biting his lips between his teeth as they quivered to the drum of a song that wasn’t playing. Tears rolled down his cheeks leaving salty trails of stress behind, still trying to mask the fact that he wasn’t really as strong and as tough as he’d made himself out to be.

 

“It’s stupid,” He whispered shakily, drawing in his first deep breath that racked his body. He choked and began to sob into his voice, “how can anybody even think about doing this to somebody else? _ I feel like I’m being torn apart, and I don’t know if I can keep doing this.” _

 

Kenny stopped breathing and let out his own sob, dry and scared. He knew his habits were getting out of hand, cheating on impulse when under any influence. He would never do it if he knew how to stop himself. He just wanted to be loyal. He just wanted to be a good fucking boyfriend without fucking it up.

 

First, it was Tammy.

 

She’d been back in town for a few months, so she and Kenny went to some ghetto club in the shadiest part of Denver for a night. He took a few shots and smoked a blunt or two until he was basically out of his mind. He couldn’t see or think straight and was as close to fucked up as it could get. His heart was racing and his ears were pounding with shitty trap remixes of songs that hadn’t been popular since 2011.

 

One thing led to another, and next thing he knew he was getting a blowjob in his car.

 

Craig learned from a series of screenshotted texts he’d sent Kyle that night about how he didn’t know how he was gonna tell him. Panicking that he was going to lose his only purpose in life, and that he was going to end up alone. Kyle described the desperate phone call and how he didn’t want to have to live without him, and he was forgiven.

 

Which was funny.

 

Because second, it was Kyle.

 

Craig doesn’t really know the story, other than they met up with Stan and Cartman for a reunion and Kyle was the one to speak up again. _“It was a mistake,”_ he pleaded, Kenny just behind him, _“it’ll never happen again. I’ll never even talk to him again if you don’t want me to, just please.”_

 

Craig said it was okay to maintain their lifelong friendship. He forgave them.

 

But this time he couldn’t handle the internal screaming all week, aching for loyalty without worrying about when the next time he’d have to face another heartbreak. Or without worrying about discovering it on his own this time.

 

Kenny’s shirt collar had purple-red lipstick around the edges, which Craig had originally passed off as potential blood or something. He had opened condom wrappers in the pockets of his jeans. Unusual for him, he never used them when he masturbated and they surely hadn’t needed one together for over a month.

 

But then he saw the stockings.

 

They were shoved behind his shitty old mac computer monitor along with some nasty smelling baggies. He saw the thin black mesh out of his peripheral and pulled it out, revealing the nasty result of an unforeseen mistake. Craig felt his heart stop momentarily, picking back up faster than normal once it began to beat again. He clutched the lingerie tightly before making his way to the couch downstairs, where Kenny was sat with cereal watching Saturday Night Live.

 

_“I want to know something,”_ he said quietly, looking at the lucky charms floating at the surface of the milk. Kenny turned his head with a comforting yet concerned, “anything” and shifted himself to face him better.

 

Craig held up the stockings hesitantly, watching Kenny pale and the milk begin to shake more than it had before. He was glubbing like a fish, trying to force words from his throat that he didn’t have. Craig could already feel his eyes begin to well by the time he swallowed and suggested they talk about this upstairs.

 

And there they were.

 

Kenny began to cry, regretting every little fucked up thing he’d done since they’d gotten together. The cheating, the lies, the shame, the lack of thought before impulsion, anything that was fucking with their bond. “I wish I knew how I did it,” he admitted in fear, “I’d stop the moment I had a solution.”

 

Craig looked down at the comforter, sobs still tearing their way through his throat, “can I forgive you this time? Can I say it’s all gonna be okay and then go back to our life where we’ll be stuck in this unhealthy cycle?”

 

“I doubt it,” Kenny croaked, admitting final defeat.

 

They sat in silence much longer than they’d intended. They loved each other so, so much, and it was beginning to turn into something more sinister. Fights every afternoon, violence from both sides, feeling like the world was trying to break them when they spoke. They’d had so much fun within one year that they couldn’t seem to fit it in anywhere else. They’d discussed breaking up before as if it were some organic medicine that a woman was trying to sell you through email, claiming to fix all of your problems without any proof.

 

Maybe Kenny was out of his mind when he pushed himself from the bed and turned to the boy for the final time.

 

Maybe he was just high when he said, “I’ll let myself out.”

 

Maybe it was just the weed he’d been smoking.


End file.
